A/N: So, I think I should add one of these, as this fic is just getting a bit darker. This chapter should probably have warnings for angst, emotional confusion, memory craziness, and reference to traumatic experiences introduced for plotty purposes. The M is for language, sex (of questionable consent - see the memory craziness), and somewhat violence (though not in this chapter). Here we go . . .
Part I, Chapter 2
James realizes he should probably say something.
"Brian, uh, George helped me tonight. He is the one that beat up the guys that abducted me. And he doesn't have a place to stay. Could he come back with us?"
Brian is careful about the apartment. He didn't even let James over until the third time they met. James have thinks it's some sort of industry secrets thing, as Brian has items from work on display in the hallway and a couple in the living room. But high-tech spy already has all the tech he could possibly need (it was one of his defining characteristics), so James doesn't really think there will be a problem on that front.
So when James asks if they can take his high-tech spy home with them, he is able to marshal some pretty strong arguments. Panther-eyes watch him as he talks, not interrupting, and James knows cognitively that such concentrated attention should make him nervous but maybe the adrenalin was pushing him through. Helping him form complete sentences. Because he feels alert and his skin is tingling. Though that might just be more blooming bruises. Maybe the gadget hadn't been able to heal everything that was wrong with him.
James' eyes flicker to the belt around the guy's waist, the tools there. He wants to look at them some more. To use them. But as he makes the case for bringing the guy home with them, he steers clear of that reason. Focuses on the more mundane. The fact that there is plenty of space, and this guy is clearly not a big talker. They just got that fold out couch. Brian wouldn't even notice he was there. Though James is fairly certain James will notice he is there. In fact James really, really wants the guy to come back to the apartment - the thought of leaving him here, in the parking lot, is impossible.
Brian listens and then focuses in on one thing. "You incapacitated all three of those men? By yourself?"
"I was not assisted by any third party."
It is the first thing the guy has said since introducing himself with his not-name. James wants him to talk more, but he is silent. After a further extended moment, Brian speaks.
"I see."
Brian looks again at the cat suit, the batman belt, coming to rest on what appears to be a little mini-triangle in dark grey faintly visible.
"He's not dangerous," James says.
Brian's gaze stays fixed on the mini-triangle, about where the guy's heart would be beneath the suit. James' own heart his hammering, and then plays a little victory march when Brian nods.
"You don't have any more things with you?" Brian says.
A head shake, no. James is bouncing as they walk together back to the car. He has a million things he wants to say but they aren't actually forming into sentences anymore like a coherent, noncrazy person so instead his just grinning like an idiot as they get in the car. He's not sure why he is so happy. It feels a bit like when he got his job, or when Mia says she likes one of his stories. But so much more. When "George" – James knows that is not his name - looks for a moment at the seatbelt as though uncertain what to do with it, then pulls it across his chest and clicks it into place James can barely keep back the (manly) giggles.
Brian makes awkward small talk in the car, but when all they receive are monosyllabic nonresponses Brian's questions subside. He'll talk to me! James thinks, and it's almost gleeful. He really doesn't know what the fuck is wrong with him. It's actually like he's high on something.
Luckily it is not far to the apartment. They park the car and take the elevator up - 12th floor, right at the top - and James' heart is hammering. They walk down the hallway, the wide windows looking out over the bay. The whole development is fairly new, a renovation of an old wharf. The first time he came her he had been impressed with the view, had been awed by the elevator and sleek lines of the hallway.
He doesn't think high-tech spy is having similar feelings. He's probably used to places that are all . . . high tech. Yeah. James has to figure out more about where this guy actually comes from. The guy is walking closely to him – somehow they had started walking shoulder to shoulder once they left the elevator, with Brian in front. He wants to talk but refrains. Brian will go to work in the morning, and then . . . why do you care if Brian is here? But he did care. And anyway, something told him the guy wouldn't talk so long as Brian was around. And more than talking? James thinks there is some of that going on as well.
"I am glad we ran into you in the garage," James said. "Where were you planning on staying?"
"I am staying at a motel."
James has a mental image of this spy-guy in his black beanie and batman belt, sitting on a motel bed with some purple flower comforter and one of those old ceilings with water stains and flecks of peeling paint.
"Well, Brian's place is much better than a motel."
Brian opens the door and they step inside, James shoulder to shoulder with his high-tech spy. As expected there is no shock or awe on the chiseled lines of the guy's face – rather, his expression stays cool as he surveys the room, as though it is about as impressive as the parking lot at the hospital. The room is all modern lines and high end art furniture - Brian's company made serious money a couple years back. The space is spacious and open, with a long hallway to the right leading to the bedroom.
"This is where you have been staying?"
"It's Brian's place."
Brian is standing next to their new three-thousand dollar couch and eyeing the guy warily.
"It's your place now too, James. I told you once I started storing your clothes in the closets, it became official."
James takes a moment to feel guilty about how much he lusting after the guy, because le's be serious, that's what's going on here. Brian has never asked for fidelity, but he has never needed too, seeing as James until the last twelve hours really had little interest in having sex with anyone. James represses the urges and folds himself on the white couch, looks at the stack of his comic books on the coffee table, the only clutter in the room. It's a little cold but it suits the space.
The room is silent. When James had moved to the couch the guy had stayed standing at the front door. There is now a gap between him at the door and James and Brian in the room.
"Are you going to come in?" James says, flipping through one of the magazines. The guy does not move, remaining like a shadow near the door. A warm, dangerous shadow that is making James' skin tingle even from this distance. He clamps down on that train of thought and shifts on the couch, looking up only when he hears the voice from the doorway.
"How long has Jim been here?"
"About six months," Brian says.
Brian has the look he wears when he is asking James to try to remember something, or whether he is sure he's ready to look for a job, or whether he is able to attend some fancy function because there will be people there and they both know how nervous James gets in large groups of people.
The guy's jaw tenses and James knows he is angry, the same way he knows it is cold in this apartment and the couch is soft beneath his toes and that despite how beat up he looks on the cover of the most recent issue Spiderman is not going to die.
"And how long has Jim been in this city?"
"Two years," James says.
This is his standard response, though in reality his memory is . . . fuzzy, to use a charitable term. The exuberance from earlier has dimmed, and he is feeling instead sad and distressed, and - James looks sharply up at the still figure standing in front of Brian's high-end bookshelf. It's like the feelings are coming from him. That doesn't really make any sense, but that's definitely what it feels like, and James watches the play of shadows across the cats suit and imagines he can feel the tension in the muscles beneath.
"And where were you before?" George is looking right at him now, and James is positive that is not his name, and this whole thing is wrong, somehow, deeply wrong, and James can't tell if the feeling is coming from himself for from the guy across the room.
"I don't know," He usually would have stopped there, sees Brian's surprise when he continues, but he feels he should give an explanation. "I was really messed up when Brian took me in. The doctors said I fucked up my memory. I was living on the street for a while, until Brian found me and helped me get cleaned up. I really owe him a lot."
He could be talking to one of those statue-performers who hang out at Union Square, the guy is so still. But James has the impulse to raise his hands to his ears. He never thought silence could be so loud.
"It's true James was a mess when I met him," Brian says, and he still have that careful, evaluating look. "But you wouldn't know it now. He has greatly improved."
James nods. James had been so strung out when Brian found him, doing anything - things he really didn't like to think about - to get his next fix. At that time everything had hurt and it was only the drugs that kept him sane. Because if he was high, he could avoid the room. That was when he was still slipping under nearly every night and they would tear him apart. It seemed anything he tried to hold onto, anything that made him feel confident or secure or respected, would be torn from him. Now the demons were still there but the drugs - prescription, this time - helped and he felt like a person again. Brian had done that for him.
"No," the single word, whispered, seems made of splintered glass. "It has only been five days."
James has no idea what this means, but he knows it means something. James wants to reach out, to say it's going to be alright like high-tech spy is actually a friend of his. Or a brother. Or . . . James shakes his head. James can feelthe waves of pain and disbelief, like a space heater set to emit depressing emotions, and he's positive now he has some localized ESP going on and wonders if the beating somehow awakened some latent physic tendency. He's finding it difficult to resist hugging the guy, which would just be incredibly awkward. So instead he hugs his knees more tightly.
"I'm alright now," James mumbles, but this doesn't seem to help. If anything the waves of distress just intensify. Jesus what happened to all that exuberance from earlier? James feels like he's just gone down the steep side of a roller coaster.
"You can sleep here," Brian says, eventually, once the silence has stretched to truly awkward proportions. "Once you brush James aside you'll see the couch folds out, and you'll find sheets in the closet in the hallway. Or, James, perhaps you would like to help him?"
James nods and unfolds from the couch. He gets the bedding from the closet, heaping it high on his arms. Over the top he can he George looking at him, and you would have thought James was performing some kind of circus act from the surprise in the guy's face. Well, not actually in his face, his face did not do much to show the emotions - it was again more that James knew what he was feeling, would sense the surprise, the shock, and a deep undercurrent of distress.
James leaves the bedding on the coffee table, and moves to start pulling out the bed, but is stopped by strong fingers around his wrist.
"It is not necessary for you to serve me."
James is overly conscious of the skin on skin contact, even though it is just fingers around his wrist. He thinks the guy must feel it as well, though where James' too-fair skin is certainly flushed pink, the guy looks more sick than aroused, some trick of the light making his face literally green.
"Thank you for helping me." It is at once everything and nowhere near enough. The guy does not say anything, but doesn't release his grip either, and for a too-long bit not-long-enough span of time they stand frozen. James has the ridiculous impression that if he says some magic word he will wake up and all of this will make sense, somehow. But he has no idea what that word might be.
Then Brian is calling from the hallway and James moves away.
"See you in the morning?" James says, and he means it to be friendly but the guy just looks so sad. "Hey, you alright?"
"You should sleep."
For a moment James wants to protest - hey, you don't tell me what to do - but he doesn't. Cause it's true. The gadget combined with the doctors had done a lot to ease his injuries, but he was still sore, and bruised, and shaken, and feels like he just road in the backseat of a very advanced emotional rollercoaster. He should sleep.
But he looks back before stepping into the hallway.
"Good night."
"Good night, Jim." The guy is standing behind the couch, his fingers digging into the white cloth in what looks like a too-tight grip, as he has been doing since he dropped James' wrist.
"It's James," James says, and immediately regrets it. "But Jim is fine. You can take a shower, if you want. There are towels in the bathroom, I can get you one-"
"That won't be necessary," and then, like reading a phrase from a book, "I am grateful for your hospitality."
Finally there's nothing more to say so James pads down the hallway. One side of the hallway is single glass window. Beyond the windows, the water of the Bay is smooth, the lights from the bridge just visible to the left. He can see the twinkle of houses on the other side of the Bay. He should get out more often, he never goes anywhere, it wouldn't be too hard to hop on Bart and visit Oakland or Berkeley this weekend.
He wonders if George could go with him. Which is ridiculous, the guy would probably leave tomorrow. It would be Brianwho might go with him. He should ask Brian and stop thinking about the panther in their living room with the black beanie.
James opens to the door to the bedroom with a tad too much force, then steps more cautiously over the threshold. Brian's there, undressing, the king-sized bed and dark, high thread count sheets. He always feels like a bit of an interloper here, even though he has been sleeping that bed for months.
"You say he helped you?" Brian says. He has removed his button up shirt, revealing lean, toned muscles. There is a splash of blood on the crisp white fabric. James' blood.
"Yes," James takes the shirt and folds it, placing it in the hamper. "If he had not come, those guys would have taken me apart."
James is consciously having to stop himself from thinking of the man in the other room, and there's certainly the buzz of the sexual attraction but there is more than that as well. There is still more he needs to say. He'll talk to me. They hadn't talked about the warehouse, hadn't talked about the hug, the finger thing, hadn't talked about Kirk, that James was not Kirk so there was really no reason for there to be high-tech spies in his life. They need to talk about it.
James heads back across the room and Brian pulls him in, the fingers of one of Brian's hands digging into his waist while the other hand cups his cheek, at once intimate and strangely remote. "I am glad they didn't. I was worried about you."
"I'm just glad it's over," James says.
Brian smiles and leans in to kiss along James' neck, beneath his chin. James leans into the attention, though he's having trouble responding. Brian can't really ask anything of him tonight. He just got worked over by a bunch of thugs, plus there's a guest in the living room. James knows these are good excuses.
"You know," Brian says, pulling back but keeping his grip on James' waist. "We should think about getting you some self defense classes."
James shakes his head. "You know I don't like to fight."
Brian's head is cocked to one side, and James has a ridiculous thought that if the man in the other room is a panther, Brian is some kind of bird. But the elegant, slightly scary kind. Maybe a hawk.
"I bet you would be good at it, if you tried," Brian says.
James shakes his head. At his age - whatever it is, he is estimating late twenties -all he could hope to learn would be the basics and without even trying he knows it would just make him angry and frustrated. Besides, even if he had known the rudiments of self defense, he still wouldn't have been able to stop those thugs from taking him. He is thinking about the panther-smooth movements George had used to take out those thugs, as easy as taking apart a box or some such overused metaphor. It's not like he could ever hope to do anything like that.
"I'm not like you, having everything come natural to me. You know it's difficult for me to remember things," James says.
Brian moves so they are pressed even closer together, and James can feel Brian rock hard beneath the smooth silk of his pajama pants. James lets out a breath, trying to convey his lack of enthusiasm to obviously. He knows he will be expected to do something about that, injuries or no.
"You're world class at some things," Brian says, and James recognizes that tone of voice, knows what it means.
"I'm too sore for you to fuck me tonight," James says.
It is a little raw and a little abrupt but Brian just smiles. James knows he doesn't mind. Because after all they had met like this, just like this, Brian looking for a rent-boy and picking James' name off a list. Usually James felt lucky, supremely lucky he had been preferred and allowed to stay. Brian could have had anyone, someone less broken, someone he didn't need to nurse through illness or provide medicine for or shepherd back to health. He was lucky.
But tonight James doesn't feel lucky. He just feels tired.
Brian uses a thumb to run around James' lips.
"How's your throat?"
James nods and gets to his knees.
A/N: Thanks for reading, and comments are appreciated! As I edited this chapter I found myself extending some scenes, and so have split this chapter in two. Part I is now 3 parts.
I should mention also this fic was semi-inspired by an awesome K/S fanvideo - which can be found here: watch?v=O2Qc_JHU6Ug. I downloaded the song - "Dreaming Wide Awake, by Poets of the Fall - and have it in the mix I listen to while writing. I realize I have chosen the same lyric to title this fic as is used in the video, so, double thanks to the video!
